Jones scoffs at Gustafsson's strategy

UFC light-heavyweight champion Jon Jones says he has a mental edge over Alexander Gustafsson, whom he will face in the main event at UFC 165 on Saturday in Toronto on pay-per-view.

“He said he knows if he sticks and moves he'll be OK,” Jones said of Gustafsson. “The psychology of a guy that wants to stick and move means that he feels as if he's not ready to be in there with me. He doesn't want to be trapped in a room with me. That shows insecurity. Sticking and moving is the game plan of a guy who is just not ready to be toe-to-toe or neck-to-neck. I'm not a guy who goes in the pocket and starts swinging haymakers, but just the stick-and-move psychology is the lesser man's psychology.

“(Joe) Frazier or George Foreman, they don't think stick and move. They think, ‘Tear your head off.’ Stick and move is the guy that don't quite have it. You know, he has to come up with a way of winning. Like (Muhammad) Ali, he wasn't quite the fighter of a George Foreman when he fought, but he stuck and moved and he pulled it off.”

Jones will become the winningest light-heavyweight champion in UFC history if he is able to successfully defend his title for a sixth time against Gustafsson. Jones has kept that edge over the division because of his continual training and his devotion to studying his opponents. He studies every piece of film of his opponents’ fights and watches all their interviews.

“It's hard to say who I think will give me a hard time,” Jones said. “I believe when I take guys as serious as I do it's like there's a solution to everything. I find that solution every time through just hours and hours of studying and studying. So it's hard to say who is going to be the greatest challenge. Because I study for them so hard it's hard to find insecurity in myself when it comes to these other guys.”

NOTES

Team Tate’s Julianna Pena weathered an early onslaught from Team Rousey's Shayna Baszler and rallied to submit the heavily favored Baszler in the second round on last week's episode of “The Ultimate Fighter 18” on Fox Sports 1.

“Definitely, I could feel the arrogance in the air,” Pena told MMAFighting.com. “I could feel how confident they all were as a team. Everybody already knew they had it in the bag, including my own team. Nobody from my own team thought I was going to win. Nobody believed in me.

“Even after the fight, when we were riding back in the van, I was like, ‘Ha! None of you guys thought I was gonna win!’ And they were all like, ‘Yup. We didn't. Sorry.’ They all admitted it. I was like, maybe now you guys will take me more seriously. But at the same time, good. Keep hating on me. That fuels me. I was getting high off their hatred.”

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